Deadly Convictions: Do our beliefs merit martyrdom?
If an idea is worth living for is it worth dying for
as well? History is full of people who thought so
and laid down their lives for their beliefs. But
today, especially in the United States, martyrs
often are condemned and considered fanatics.
Star Tribune
SUNDAY/April 16, 1995
By Kim Ode
Staff Writer
It’s the type of question that can grind a
pleasant Easter dinner conversation to a halt:
What would you die for?
Some answers come easily. Parents who have
felt emotions of unforeseen fierceness kick in
amid the diaper changes know that laying
down your life to save your child’s would be
as natural as a sneeze.
But after that, the conversation grows more
complex. What beliefs are worth dying for? Is
martyrdom a practical strategy? Christians
believe Jesus died for their sins. We speak of
soldiers who died for their country. Our
history is full of martyrs – people who, while
not seeking death, nonetheless were willing to
keep speaking, keep witnessing, keep writing
despite its threat.
So when we fall silent before the Easter ham,
when it’s difficult to name something in which
we believe so deeply that we would die before
we saw it compromised or destroyed, it’s
difficult also not to feel somehow unworthy,
selfish, and shallow.
“The stories about martyrs seem to only
convince us or our weak faith,” said Garcia
Grindal, professor of rhetoric at Luther
Seminary at St. Paul. “I know they are
designed to give me courage, but I wonder
whether I would have the sheer guts to lay
myself down.”
Grindal spoke recently at an ethnics seminar at
Augsburg College in Minneapolis that is part
of a month long exhibit, “The Mirror of the
Martyrs,” through May 4. It traces the
experience of the Anabaptists in the 1500s,
who insisted that church be separate from the
state and govern itself. They were tortured and
killed by those loyal to the union of church
and state.
Anabaptist descendants today are found in the
Mennonites, Amish, Hutterites, Brethren in
Christ and other groups.
Their story is illustrated by etchings on copper
plates used in productions of a book, “The
Martyrs Mirror,” in 1685. Only 30 of the
original 104 plates survive, and eight are
displayed at Augsburg. They are delicate
renderings of horror: smoke billowing around
people lashed to stakes, swords flashing down
on bare necks, children sifting through ashes
for a relic of their parents.
Times have changed. Such executions no
longer are public theater. One legacy of the
Vietnam War is to examine what causes are
worth defending with lives.
Today, we look with a mixture of awe and
wariness at members of the Islamic Jihad who
engage in “martyrdom operations” against
Israel, believing they are commanded to wage
holy war for the sake of God. We are
bombarded with reports of disaffected
younger generations – reports that, while they
may exaggerate the “slacker” image, still
underscore a sincere questioning about what
cause is worth the effort of commitment,
much less sacrifice.
The issue of martyrdoms reveals a paradox,
Grindal said, for if an idea or cause is not
worth dying for, then it is not worth living for,
either.
“If the living are so fond of life that they will
suffer any compromise, what life is that?” she
asked. In fact, she said, we tend to condemn
those who say an idea is worth dying for,
lumping them with fanatics.
What may seem a philosophical debate in the
United States is a concrete way of life in many
other countries. David Batstone is the founder
and director of Central American Mission
Partners, a development and aid agency that
works with churches to establish programs
ranging from farming to health to human
rights. In 1985, fresh from the theology of the
seminary, one of his fist experiences with the
concrete was with people in El Salvador
whom when asked what Americans could do
to fight with death squads, replied, “Come sit
with us. When we receive death threats, come
live with us.”
“It was not the most attractive proposition I’d
ever received,” Batstone said. But the strategy
of placing U.S. citizens with endangered
people was effective, albeit on its small scale.
The experience helped him look more deeply
into the motivations of martyrdom and see
how social transformation and religion are
linked. Martyrdom is not so much about
dying, but about being willing to die.
“We have this messianic ideal of what it
means to follow Christ,” he said. “Didn’t
Christ give his life for his friends, for our
sins?”
Batstone doesn’t believe that Jesus set out to
die, but was willing to demonstrate how to
make love real. “He sought to give life. There
is a particular way of looking at martyrdom
and realizing that the strategy is not to die.
The strategy is to keep living.”
Batstone pointed to the Rev. Martin Luther
King Jr. as a martyr in the cause of love.
Martyrdom/ In some
countries, it’s more than
an abstract idea
“In the eyes of the persecutors, why is love so
terrifying? It’s because love changes the space
you’re working in,” he said. “All Martin
Luther King said was that all people are equal.
But that changed the way that I operate in my
space, the way I live and hold power. He
changed it through love – and it cost him his
life.”
The Augsburg exhibit looks at martyrdom
through a slightly different lens, drawing links
between ancient tortures and the Fifth
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which
provides that “No person shall…be compelled
in any criminal case to be a witness against
himself.”
“All Martin Luther King said was that
all people are equal. But that
changed the way that I operate in
my space, the way I live and hold
power. He changed it through love –
and it cost him his life.”
David Batstone, founder and director of
Central American Mission Partners
That amendment is a legacy of the 15th
century thumbscrews and stretching racks
used to elicit confessions, said Robert Kreider,
professor emeritus of history and peace
studies at Bethel College in Kansas.
Over years of studying the historical record,
Kreider said he has become convinced that
most martyrs “did not seek martyrdom,” he
said. “They accepted it. What they sought was
to be faithful.”
But the issue of being faithful to a cause or
ideal forces us “to probe the edges of ethnics,”
he said. “When is it right to question
government? What can no one make me do?”
Around the world, people who screams “are
heard by none but jailers” continue to struggle
with this issue.
“And what of us?” a student asked Kreider
after his lecture. Where can a citizen in this
culture, with it affluence, with its pockets of
cynicism, with its history of ethics providing
ample fodder for debate, look for something
that can inspire deep convictions?
The retired professor looked across the
generations nd sympathized. It’s difficult, he
saidm to find inspirational stories “that are not
too pietistically sticky.”
“But how about the Gospels?” he suggested.
“Those who suffer for conscience have a
compelling need that the story be told.” And
then he considered some more: “And, rather
than approach it metaphysically – to argue a
person into the kingdom – I would take time
to a Bach concert, and break bread with him to
tell his first.” In sharing stories, he said, we
may discover truths worth believing in.
“The Mirror of the Martyrs: is in place through May 4 at Christensen
Center at Augsburg College, 2211 Riverside Av., Minneapolis. Hours are
10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. The
exhibit is free. For more information, call 375-96